It was great! A once in a lifetime flip for me!
Thanks guys for taking me along! I had the time of my life.
From Cape Town to PE we had very bad weather almost all the way.. Driving (in a rental Polo) a hour out of town, into a dodgy area, where we thought we would find the house of a friend where we were to sleep that night, only to find out we went the wrong way.. A hour later we found his home. Slept on the floor, had cold pizza for breakfast. Weather forecast saying that we will be stuck in PE for the next 3 day because of thunder storms. Got up early, lift off just just just as the clouds came in.
After dodging PE`s weather, it was smooth sailing.
A few stops along the way for refueling the heli and ourselves with AVGAS, jungle bars and a few sips of water. We arrived at Gariep`s air field at the same time as a Police car. It stopped and a few cops got out.. including inspector Johannes. He had a little photo shoot in front of the chopper while we were refueling. He got into the pilots seat asking if the pedal on the left is the clutch. We scored a lift with the man who owned the hanger where the 44 spent the night - all the way to the little bungalows at the Gariep dam.Here we had fluffy beds to jump on! We had no wheels to take us in to town so we walked all the way to a little bar/diner.. We were so hungry with our belly's rumbling - communicating with each other. We ordered pink milk shakes and toasted cheese sandwiches, burgers and loads of french fries! We hung out for a bit solving the worlds problems.. When we went in to pay, a few random guys started talking to me.. after a while I asked them if they could please take us to the air field the next morning. ( Otherwise we would have to hitch hike! ) They said SURE!! We will be there.. We were stoked about our lift, next door was a little 7 11 - ish places - Griepdam style.. We bought cookies, chips, cooldrinks and a bunch of other yummy bad stuff.. We had a picnic next to the dam for dinner and ended up skipping stones and inventing very "creative" stone throwing games in the water!
It got very cold that night.. we all looked forward to a nice warm shower after a long day.. some one that we love dearly took a nice lonnnng WARM shower.. and when I got there the water was freeeeezing cold! haha not so funny at the time!
Next morning our friend from the bar did not pitch up.. What a surprise! We waited, called and waited some more.. till we had to make plan B.. walk! No!! Its too far. Some how we managed to get a lift.. and our friend inspector Johannes and his team found us along the way, watched our take off and waved goodbye from way down on the ground.
Every now and then we would burst out into song way up in the air with our mighty fine view as far as the eye can see! Just a few more stops and refuels untill we reached Potch, where Grandma and Grandpa was waiting for us.. Abri and Louw tried to find a hanger for the helicopter to sleep in that night.. but failed to do so. They took our Grandpa up for a flip while me and Grandma sat in the car gossiping about the whole town and their problems and happy things too! After the flip we dressed the 44 in his pajamas, and had lunch at home! We met old friends and family and had a great time in our home town Potchefstroom ( the guys got in contact with the boys in blue.. the police and they let us use their hanger for free!)
